Managing Small International Teams

I was thinking that after finishing Dafuge's challenge that I could start a new game and start as a silly small International team (i.e. American Samoa kinda level) and see if I could take them to International glory. However there is no American Samoan league, so my question is this, what is the situation with their players fitness, regular matches, gaining youths/regens etc? Is it feasible or would they be too small to do this with?

You'll probably want to load the Australian League if you're playing as American Samoa, and definitely load the large database. That might give you enough players to field a full squad for the international team.

The game should generate stats for the Samoan players if they don't have an active league, but the match fitness may be a problem.

Also, use the load all players from... option when you start the game.

i. might have to find a national where the large database isn't needed as my PC isn't the greatest, will have to find out the lowest rank nation with a playable league

ii. when using the 'load all players from' option will it keep churning out regens?

i. might have to find a national where the large database isn't needed as my PC isn't the greatest, will have to find out the lowest rank nation with a playable league

ii. when using the 'load all players from' option will it keep churning out regens?

Question 2 is a good question. If regens aren't churned out then it will be a short game or the need to use greyed out players I suppose. Anyone tried a game like this as it sounds quite interesting?

Well the "use all players from" option might unbalance your game after a few seasons as it will fill teams in active leagues with regens from that nation. So you might find yourself with an English League full of Samoans in 10 years, for example.

Maybe use a medium database and take a small European, African or South American nation to World Cup glory. Belarus I know has a playable league.

I was playing as Ghana once and beyond all the well know players there wasn't much depth. My back up keeper was an awful regen and a few other useless players had to fill out the squad.

If you want to play as an African nation, your best bet would be to load all the French and maybe German leagues as lots of Africans play in the lower leagues there.

israel might be a nice option. a lot of good young talent, a few established european players.

i'm currently managing montenegro (huge db), just to manage fatic, vucinic, and jovetic. see where i can take them.

Played a game with Cook Islands on FM08 and did fairly well with them (won the Oceania Nations Cup in the 2020s). It's an interesting experience to say the least.

How about someone like Singapore?

I was Netherlands Antilles in FM 07, it was good fun. I only lost to the USA 3-0 on aggregate, so the possibilities are there.

Without looking it up, I would imagine Hong Kong would be the lowest-ranked national team which has a playable league in the game.

For FM08 someone started a challenge to take one of the worlds lowest ranked national teams to some sort of glory (turned out to be as simple as just a win for me ).

I chose the Central African Republic. I had enough players from the European leagues with which to make a team (loaded France to CFA, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal plus a few others I believe). I also loaded all players from C.A.R.

I did notice a problem with the fitness levels of C.A.R. based players, as they rarely got games.

It was fun but tough.

I actually started another couple of games of a similar ilk. I played as Madagascar and, I think, Guinea Bissau. The Madagascar game was by far the most fun. You may be lucky to find young French players who are eligible to play for Madagascar that are willing to play for Madagascar. I did, and they turned out to be the bomb for me.

One problem you may find with some teams is whether you are able to select them to manage. This was a problem with some of the smallest teams in 08. I was never able to select Mongolia to be manageable for instance.

Thinking back, the best effort was by some guy managing American Samoa. He did really well.

You may even find the thread if you searched American Samoa.

Good luck if you choose to do this. I'm actually feeling an urge to recreate my Madagascan adventure.

A tip for maximising the best players for your country:

Many African nations will have a sort of parent nation where their best talent ends up playing in the lower leagues. For countries such as Madagascar and C.A.R. that will be France (plus Belgium and Switzerland to a lesser extent). For countries such as Angola and Guinea Bissau you are looking at Portugal too, as their national language is Portuguese.

Loading the South African leagues may help with some southern African teams.

Loading Mexico and USA will help for CONCACAF teams.

Australia for Oceania, as well as loading players for New Zealand.

Also: India is a good challenge. They're not good by any means and you have a league and plenty of players to choose from. It'll be a tester.

Well what do you know, MadWooster has recreated the challenge this year. Here.

I also played a game with Madagascar in FM07. The key is like anagain said, finding those young players in the French leagues that are eligible to play for Madagascar and capping them before France has a chance to claim them. You'll struggle for a while with such young players, but as they mature, the team will improve.